On 17 Aug 2014, at 08:02, LizR wrote:
On 17 August 2014 17:45, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
On 8/16/2014 10:19 PM, LizR wrote:
On 17 August 2014 07:14, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote:
Both consciousness and physics supervene on the computations,
which exist necessarily. Consciousness does not supervene on the
physics.
Yes, I agreed to that. The question was can consciousness
supervene on computations that do not instantiate any physics? I
think not.
Would you mind clarifying this? I'm not what it means that
consciousness can only supervene on computations that instantiate
physics. For example - assuming my brain is doing computations, how
is it instantiating physics? Or did you mean that the brain is a
physical object, and hence instantiated within physics, so to speak?
No I mean you need something to think about that has the consistency
and stabiltiy of an external world. You need to be able to think in
terms of objects, bodies, motions, numbers, perceptions,... Of
course language gives you this, but you have some of it prior to
language which I think is "hardwired" by evolution.
So you need something to be conscious of - or, not just that - you
need something specific (consistent and stable) to be conscious of.
This would appear to be the case - the world is consistent and
stable (ish) - is this related to the white rabbits and suchlike
that are discussed in "Theory of Nothing" ?
And then the other question is can physics supervene on
computations that do not instantiate any consciousness? I'm not
sure about that.
If I read this arright, which I probably don't, this would be
equivalent to comp generating universes with no observers, which I
imagine is by definition impossible.
Yes, that's what it would mean. But if comp can't generate
universes with no observers what does it mean that there were no
people (or even jumping spiders) for most of the duration of the
universe?
Indeed. This is generally my objection to theories that require
conscious observers (and also my objection to people who say 1+1=2
is a human invention, by the way, since the laws of physics, which
appear to be based on arithmetic, still worked fine without any
conscious beings to "invent" them).
And what about distant parts of the universe that we can't
observe? And do we have to actually *be* observing for them to
exist? Do we suppose that they don't exist or do we take or
theories of cosmology that indicate they should exist as proof that
there are observers of them?
Yes. Although of course it is hard to get away from us observing
them, since everything we know is what we observe (this might also
be the reply of people who think maths is a human invention, or any
sort of invention, to those of us who think they are necessary even
in places we can't observe. It's a bit of a two edged sword.)
"I cannot believe that the Moon exists only because a mouse looks at
it." -- Albert Einstein
Einstein was criticizing the copenhagenian theory where consciousness
would not just select a world (like in Everett or comp), but makes the
other world/computation disappearing.
Einstein is no more here, so we can't know if he would have
appreciated that his realism, assuming QM, entails the MW.
I say we get even an a priori more big inflation of realities once we
assume comp. We have a bigger problem, but using just the most
classical theory of knowledge solves it, when we listen to the
machine's opinion on this (AUDA).
Bruno
Bruno
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